“Renffeld was the slave of Dracula,” said Chester.
“Oh sure,” said Harry, with great aplomb. “And there are more of these than you expected?” I think he did it just to needle Chester, but the tracker didn't appear to notice.
“I've been looking for years,” he said. “Years. Never anything like this. Never.”
“Well,” I said, wanting to get back down to business, “I'm really pleased for you. Now, then, we need a little information… ” I'd been fairly careful, and didn't think it ever occurred to him that he was a suspect. I had to keep it that way, at least until he'd been ruled out. Although it was unstated between us, I knew that Harry felt the same way.
It was also sinking in that this man really, truly believed in vampires. Since he did, just how reliable could his information be? As it turned out, pretty good, if what you wanted was mostly folklore. And that was just what we wanted.
“What is this guy trying to say?” I asked, for openers. “Assuming that he has actually killed… ”
“Oh, he has, he has,” said Chester.
“Right,” said Harry. “So, what's with the throat injury bit? Post mortem and all.” “Ah,” said Chester. “Are you so certain they've been inflicted after the victim has died?”
Harry and I said, in unison, “Absolutely,” and “Bet your ass.”
“Oh.” Our expert cleared his throat. “Then, possibly, to disguise the true nature of the wound? To obliterate, say, a bite mark?”
He sounded so hopeful.
“Not a chance,” I said. “No bite mark.”
“I think he's doin' it to make people talk about neck or throat injuries,” said Harry. “How about that?”
“He could. I'm not saying that as fact, but, yes, he could.”
Chester warmed to his subject, and I spent about an hour with him and Harry. The upshot was that blood, while significant to a “vampire wannabee” as Harry called him, wasn't in any way a source of nutrition.
“Unlike true vampires, poseurs will consume, maybe, an ounce or less at a time, for the most part,” said Chester. “Daily would be too often. You'd end up with diarrhea and other things if you did more than that. Like a bleeding ulcer will do to you. Sometimes, they might overindulge. But not often.”
That was good to know, but it left me wondering what had happened to much of Edie's blood.
He also said that, at least the more sophisticated of the “poseurs” would dress the part, in a costume reminiscent of the movies.
“Just to convince their following, you know. They'd expect a Dracula, at least now and then.”
“Sure.”
“He'll try to tailor his lifestyle according to that preconception, too. Sometimes for himself, sometimes for his followers or victims.”
Renffelds apparently came in two flavors. The first was just, in his own terminology, somebody who was enthralled by a vampire. The second, according to him, was somebody who was more into the taste of blood itself. More of a participant.
“Those are the 'clinical' Renfields,” he said. “It's a disorder.”
“So,” I asked, “what are these people likely to be like? You know, how will they respond to an investigation?”
Chester laughed for the first time. “They'll not be cooperative, in any real way. They'll protect him from you. They'll tell him everything you say. They'll deny his very existence, for the most part. They'll mislead you at every turn.”
“Hostile, then,” said Harry.
“Yes.”
“What do they see in this guy?” I thought that might help.
“He protects them, for one thing. He's powerful. He avenges them, if necessary. He is deliciously evil. He's immortal. He's sometimes the source of some very intense sexual interactions. Just as often, the modern vampire's the source of some chemical substances. He's completely amoral. He has to be. After all,” he said, confidentially, “he isn't human.”
“Everything your mother warned you about,” said Harry. “Right?”
“Absolutely,” said Chester. “But you have to understand, these Renfields are quite often victims of a previous… person. Their experiences have made them depressed, or at least unhappy. Dependent, but not in an obvious way. Often happens when they're adolescents. Nothing to do with vampires, at that time. Nothing at all, until they meet him. Then he addresses, well, psychological needs.”
Just what I wanted to hear.
“So, like, why do you hunt these people?” asked Harry.
William Chester hesitated for a second or two, then said, “My sister. One of them got to her, years back. She didn't survive.”
“Ya know who it was?” asked Harry. “The one who got her?” Harry wasn't known for his delicacy, but nobody ever seemed to really mind. I could never figure that out.
“No. No, I don't.” Chester leaned forward. “But this one is closer than any I've encountered before.”
It seemed to me that he denied that a little too quickly.
Before I went back across the Mississippi to Iowa, I reiterated the “no interference” provisions to Chester. He was to confine himself to contact with either Harry or me. Period. No approaching our potential witnesses or suspects, or it was curtains.
I left secure in the knowledge that Harry was going to check out every freckle on William Chester's body before he was through. He did strike me as being sincere, but cops learn not to take people at face value. How much actual use he was going to be was another thing altogether.
I got back to the Mansion and found that it had only taken the basement team two hours to finish up. They'd found two suspicious areas that might have been places where blood had been wiped up, but obtained no positive results with leucomalachite green. Leucomalachite green is neat stuff. They mix it with water, sodium perborate, and glacial acetic acid. A drop or two on the test swab, then a couple of drops of hydrogen peroxide, and bingo. If there's blood there, it turns sort of an aqua color instantly. It's used to see if there is any reason to use other testing substances to cover an area. Neat stuff. It also saves you a lot of time if it turns out there's not any blood in your sample.
What we were looking for was, essentially, wipe marks, where somebody had mopped up, or sponged up, or any way removed traces of blood. There just about had to be some trace evidence, because, although Edie apparently hadn't been killed in the tub, she sure as hell had been killed somewhere. The murder site should have been pretty well doused. Then, to move a bloody body from some location to her second-floor bathtub was a process that would very likely leave a trail of at least some blood.
The immediate problem was, the main floor had three types of surface where blood was likely to have been deposited. First, there were large areas of rug or carpet. Second, equally large if not larger areas of polished hardwood flooring. Third, the tiled floor in the kitchen and pantry. Not to mention the wooden mop boards and the painted walls themselves. And furniture, of course, all either polished wood or fabric. Looking for possible wipe marks on surfaces where there are countless swirls and traces from constant wiping and cleaning is less than rewarding. We couldn't even eliminate the wipe marks that had left tiny trails of bubbles. Someone could have used detergent to clean up the mess. You'd have to test just about everything. We would, if necessary, or so we said, hoping that the team on the second floor would turn up something. If it did, we could follow a trail back from the tub to the point of the murder. Right.
TWELVE
Sunday, October 8, 2000
12:16
“Hello? Is anybody here?” came from the front doorway. A woman's voice.
I was on my hands and knees, with a small Mini-Mag flashlight, side-lighting possible wipe marks on the
